Posts Tagged ‘speeches

I’m just going to come right out and say it, I love you. I love you even more in 2011 because there are basically two opening days – yesterday was the first day of regular season baseball, and today I get to watch the real reason I don’t have a girlfriend, the Boston Red Sox. I’m only half serious with that comment, I am nothing like Jimmy Fallon in that lame-ass movie “Fever Pitch.” In fact, I hate that movie. However, for the next 180 days, the Red Sox will play on 162 of them (and then hopefully hopefully another 15 or so in October). As a result, I don’t feel a pressing need to find someone to spend time with, because when all else fails, I can always spend my evening with the Boston ‘Boys of Summer.’

Listen, I am not some assclown that gets really excited about opening day and then fades as the season goes on. Are there times where I pay a bit less attention to all things baseball? Of course…while the Celtics & Bruins make their respective Championship runs later this Spring (that let’s face it, will probably end in failure), I’ll be concentrating more on them. But there will not be a single night I go to sleep, or morning I wake up if the Sox are on the West Coast, where I don’t know how the Red Sox fared…or pretty much any other team for that matter.

I love it, I effing love baseball. I woke up this morning trying to pinpoint what it is about the sport that I love so much. The intricacies of the game are amazing once you’ve learned them; the dedication (in many cases, over-dedication) of Boston Red Sox fans is inspiring given all the heartache we endured over the years – for example, I wasn’t even alive in 1978 and I still want to punch Bucky ‘bleeping’ Dent in the mouth. But I was a baseball fan long before the magical 2004 World Series run, and even long before players like Nomar & Pedro made the Red Sox actual contenders. Watching the Red Sox in the 90′s was about as exciting as my “Basics of Magic Course” freshman year of college (hey don’t judge, we all needed to take a religion course).

So, while all that’s well and good, it still doesn’t explain how my love affair with baseball started in the first place. Then I looked back to what I did yesterday to celebrate Opening Day & it dawned on me. I watched all three games that ESPN covered, and in between I watched the beginning, middle and end of “Field of Dreams.” At the end, as per usual, I shed a few tears. Simply put, I am pretty sure when I first saw this movie at the ripe old age of 8, I fell in love…and each subsequent time I view it (my guess is were are bordering on 50 or so), I fall a little deeper. So, that being I said I’d like to wish all fans of all teams the best of luck this coming season, just a little more to the Red Sox…and just remember, “This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again”

Like this:

On this Black Friday, I’m thankful that I already own your film “Great Expectations,” so I don’t have to fight with crazed shoppers looking for super deals at Best Buy. Even though most likely those deals are no better than they will be for the next few weeks, and not even as good as the ones after Christmas. Not to mention all the online deals that are probably even better. Oh, and at least our economy is stable enough that people should be blowing all their disposable income on electronics they might want, good decisions! Yet I digress. Although now that I think about it…perhaps I will brave Best Buy, after all I only own your film on regular DVD, which of course is for losers…I don’t yet own a BluRay version.

Anyway, I’d like to publicly state that I think your late 90s version of “Great Expectations” is criminally underrated. Solid acting, amazing set design, and killer soundtrack. Furthermore, the drunken speech you deliver (see below) towards the end of the film is a speech I one day aspire to give. Though I don’t plan on selling out an art show, given I still can’t stay within the lines, perhaps I’ll write a book one day about some girl; perhaps it’ll be a best seller; perhaps she won’t show up to a book signing at some cool boutique book store in NYC; perhaps I’ll ditch the signing and cruise down Park Ave. with a bottle of Grey Goose in tow, to make a speech similar to this one; perhaps she will actually here it, instead of her curmudgeonly grandmother…

Like this:

Somehow you managed to go over a decade without making a good movie. There was Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy (see below), and then The Town. In between we had classics like, Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay is awful), Gigli (rated worst movie of all time), The Sum of All Fears (worst Jack Ryan film ever), and Reindeer Games (you know how bad that was). However, you did direct Gone Baby, Gone (during filming did you realize that Casey is a better actor than you?), so I have to give you some credit there.

Ok, that paragraph is neither here nor there, I’ve just always wanted to publically state my confusion over your career. Now, to the point…the speech you made in the middle of Chasing Amy spoke to not only myself, but I’m sure millions of teenage/young adult males AND females everywhere. Haven’t we all wanted to profess our love to someone who we are almost positive is going to ‘shoot us down?’ Granted, most of us are not trying to convert someone to the other team, to coin a Seinfeld term (change someone’s sexual orientation for you non-Seinfeld people. Yeah, I said it…you people), but the message is no different: “I love you…you probably don’t love me…but I needed you to know that.” I know I’ve done it, and I’m sure I’ll be writing a future letter or two in this blog about it, but I guess I don’t understand why we feel the need. Is it on the off-chance that the answer is the one we yearn for? Or is it because we just need to unload our burden. Anyway, enjoy the clip below…beware there are a few choice words.